


For a good time, call 208475

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Flustered Eli Vanto, Humor, M/M, Prostitution, Sex for Favors, Sugar Baby Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Thrawn is a Slut AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28290501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: This is the seventh time Eli's had to scrub Thrawn's name off the bathroom wall.
Relationships: Mentioned Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Original Male Characters, Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto, Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Spenc Orbar
Comments: 18
Kudos: 61





	For a good time, call 208475

**Author's Note:**

> All the best jokes in this are stolen from OfSpideRs_andRiddLes, Revakah, chaos_monkey, ZsforSs (who came up with the whole idea), Void_Punk, I'm calling y'all out.

It was the _seventh time_ this had happened this week, and it was only Tuesday.

Eli had made a habit of checking the men’s bathroom stalls ever since the first incident of nasty graffiti had been discovered, scrawled on the wall between classes:

_For a good time, call 208475._

He muttered a particularly vivid Lysatran curse as he scrubbed the latest message away; this time, whoever had written it had even gone so far as to seal it with setting spray, and it was taking every ounce of elbow grease Eli had to get it off. 

If it were anyone else, Eli would have let the message stay — god knew there were plenty like it in the Royal Imperial freshers — but for kriff’s sake, that was _Thrawn’s_ comm number (his _personal_ comm number!), and the poor guy dealt with enough harassment already. He didn’t need this, too.

With the markings half-eroded, Eli paused and wiped the sweat off his forehead, checking his chrono. No time to finish the job; he had to get to class. With a grunt of annoyance and a flash of anxiety (the instructors here were always promising they’d find out who was defacing the stalls, and once they did, there would be charges of Imperial property destruction … supposedly), he pulled a slim marker from his breast pocket and hastily scribbled out the numbers on the wall. With the setting spray between his marker and the wall, it was hardly an ideal solution — all anyone needed to do was swipe a wet piece of toilet tissue over the scribbles and they would disappear — but it was all Eli had time for.

He capped the marker and forced it back into his pocket, barrelling out the door—

—and straight into Thrawn.

“You seem to be taking increasingly lengthy personal breaks,” Thrawn said, his red eyes narrowed and burning into Eli with (absolutely unnecessary) intensity. Eli shoved past him, making no attempt to hide his frown.

 _Some thanks I get,_ he thought sourly. _You scrub a guy’s number off the bathroom wall and he demands to know why you spend so much time in the shitter._

Aloud, he said, “We’re late to class.”

Thrawn turned and followed him at an irritatingly sedate pace. 

* * *

This wasn’t even a graffiti-seeking quest — that was the worst part. Eli wasn’t actively looking for Thrawn’s comm number on the bathroom wall; he was just looking for a fresher to use while Thrawn was in the shower back at their room. And at first, he didn’t even notice the graffiti, but after he’d positioned himself in front of the urinal and got past the first wave of oh god yeah that came from holding it too long, his eyes shifted left of their own accord and there it was.

The graffiti to end all graffiti. The worst one yet (and he’d seen a dozen different iterations so far: _Looking for a happy ending? Call Thrawn!_ Or less delicately: _Thrawn sucks dick. Thrawn takes it up the ass. Thrawn is a slut_ — always followed by the ubiquitous entreaty to call 208475).

But this? This took the cake. Scrawled on the tile wall just to the left of the urinal was the most fundamentally offensive limerick Eli had ever seen:

 _An alien with glowing eyes,_ _  
_ _Blue skin, and muscular thighs_ _  
_ _Is looking for head_ _  
_ _Or someone to bed._ _  
_ _Call 208475._

“Are you _shitting_ me?” Eli whispered. He tucked himself back into his pants and touched the writing gingerly, checking to make sure it was dry. Who the hell had time to sit down and craft a limerick just for the sake of bullying? They were at Royal Imperial, for God’s sake — they were supposed to be so exhausted by the schedule that they didn’t have time for anything outside of class except sleeping and eating.

And, well, if this mystery graffiti artist was to be believed, _copious_ amounts of sex.

“You can thank me later, Thrawn,” Eli muttered to himself, and for the 18th time in the past week, he set about cleaning graffiti from the bathroom wall. 

* * *

It was the height of unfairness, Eli thought, that even though he and Thrawn had come to Royal Imperial under identical circumstances, with an identical accelerated track, _he_ was required to take hand-to-hand combat training and Thrawn wasn’t. He made his way back from the dojo alone, his body aching and his gym bag thrown over a sore shoulder, thoughts wandering to the sorts of daydreams he would never admit to having.

(Namely, that he was a supply officer on a small Outer Rim ship who had never heard of Thrawn.)

He was shaken from his thoughts only when he reached his hallway and saw a very non-blue humanoid emerging from the room he shared with Thrawn. Eli came up short, blinking at the human cadet in confusion; a moment later, Spenc Orbar noticed him and stopped too, his rich-boy swagger replaced by an awkward hunch.

“Orbar,” said Eli, letting that single word serve both as a greeting and as a ‘what the fuck are you doing here?’ Orbar ignored the second part and shuffled past Eli without a word. His face was flushed, his hair a little damp from sweat.

What had he been doing? The worst possibility leapt to the forefront of Eli’s mind — that Orbar had just finished beating Thrawn to death — but he pushed past it, and by the time he’d unlocked his bedroom door, he was starting to convince himself that Thrawn and Orbar had met for a joint workout. Because Thrawn did work out — hell, he worked out more than anyone Eli had ever met — he just didn’t go to combat classes. 

...but he’d never worked out in their quarters, either. Eli would kill him if he tried; he didn’t want sweat soaking into the carpet. 

He pushed open the door with no small amount of dread. If Thrawn and Orbar hadn’t been sparring, then—

“Ah, Cadet Vanto,” said Thrawn casually. He sat at his desk, wearing only his uniform trousers and undershirt — a fact that threw Eli off-guard yet again. Some sort of ugly old relic was on the desktop before him — part of an old Clone Wars-era cruiser, Eli guessed — and as he watched, Thrawn licked his thumb and flipped through a massive stack of paper money, the kind not used on Imperial worlds.

“Thrawn…” said Eli cautiously. “What—?”

“Cadet Orbar was kind enough to fund my latest acquisition,” Thrawn said, gesturing to the artefact in front of him. Then, with an unmistakable air of smugness, he waved the thick wad of cash in the air. “And provided me with the currency I need for relics located in the Outer Rim.”

“We’re not _in_ the Outer Rim,” said Eli.

“We will be,” said Thrawn with maddening confidence. Eli looked from the cash to the Clone Wars antique — to Thrawn’s bare arms and mussed hair — to the uniform tunic laid out neatly, not on _Thrawn’s_ bed, but on Eli’s. Since when did Thrawn leave his clothes on Eli’s bed?? Why the hell _would_ he? He was always so neat and organized, never failed to put things in their proper place, so the only thing Eli could think of was that he’d been in a hurry (why?) and that he’d felt the need to leave his own bed free for—

For—

“Oh my God,” said Eli.

Thrawn placidly counted his cash.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Eli repeated. “Thrawn, you can’t _sleep_ with Spenc Orbar. He _hates_ you.”

“We don’t do much sleeping,” Thrawn said.

Oh God, was that a joke? Was _this_ going to be forever cemented in his mind as the day he learned Thrawn had a sense of humor?

“I’m serious,” said Eli desperately. “You can’t sleep with him, Thrawn, and — good God, you _definitely_ can’t take money for it. That’s _illegal_.”

“Nothing illegal about a gift between friends,” said Thrawn, his voice light and his eyes glittering.

“Well, what about fraternization?” Eli said, jumping on the next best excuse. “Orbar’s a cadet, Thrawn. You’re technically a lieutenant. If he reported you, you’d be out on your ass within an hour, and even the Emperor couldn’t save you. Don’t be _stupid_.”

This, at least, seemed to get through to Thrawn. He set the money aside for a moment, his head cocked and his eyes distant as he thought it over.

“Very well,” he said eventually. “You make a valid point, Cadet Vanto.”

Eli nearly deflated with relief.

“Besides,” said Thrawn, picking up the money again, “there’s still his father — and Umic Orbar has far deeper pockets than his son.”

A weak sound — not a whimper, not a wheeze, but close to both — escaped Eli. This time, he really did deflate, letting the gym bag slip off his shoulder as he sank onto his mattress. Kneading his temples, he tried to convince himself this was a dream.

Thrawn watched him, muted exasperation and amusement on his face. After a moment of Eli silently shaking his head and mentally arguing with himself, Thrawn said, “You’re not dreaming, Cadet Vanto.” Then, after a brief pause, “Is it really so unbelievable? I may not be human, but I still have needs.”

“From _Orbar_?” Eli asked, his head shooting up.

“You said yourself that Orbar is highly-connected,” Thrawn reminded him. “Highly-connected means highly-funded.” He glanced down at the wad of cash and shook his head, his face difficult to read. “Did you know he’s given ten thousand credits a week for doing nothing? He calls it an _allowance_.”

“So … this is just about money?” Eli asked.

Thrawn’s only response was a dry smile and one raised eyebrow. With a groan, Eli hid his face in his hands again.

“I can’t believe I’ve been protecting your honor all this time, and you’re sleeping with _Orbar_ ,” he muttered. He heard the rustle of paper stop as Thrawn paused in his money-counting.

“Protecting my honor?” Thrawn said.

“Yeah,” said Eli. He gestured out toward the hall, frustration and embarrassment contorting his face. “From the people writing your number on the bathroom wall! I’ve been checking every fresher in the whole damn Academy to make sure there was nothing written about you. Do you know how many dirty limericks and obscene insults I’ve had to scrub off the wall in the past week? And the whole time, you were _sleeping with Orbar?_ ”

Thrawn sat up straight, his eyes narrowing, his face hard. With a sudden chill, Eli remembered he was talking to an experienced warrior.

“ _You’ve_ been erasing my messages from the fresher walls?” Thrawn asked.

A thick, horrible tension vibrated between them. Eli stared at Thrawn in disbelief.

“You—?” he started, then cleared his throat. “You were writing those messages about _yourself_?”

“Who else knows my personal comm number?” Thrawn asked. He pushed back from his desk with a shake of the head. “I expected better from you, Cadet Vanto. To sabotage a fellow student…”

A squeak of outrage escaped Eli before he could stop it. “I thought I was _helping_ you!” he protested. “I didn’t know you were so kriffing desperate to fuck that you’d write your number on a bathroom wall!”

“It’s been a while,” said Thrawn with quiet indignation. “I’ve been in exile.”

“Still, you don’t write your _name_ on the wall!” Eli said. “You’re the only nonhuman at Royal Imperial, Thrawn. If this gets out—”

“We try to keep things anonymous,” Thrawn said with a shrug.

Eli stared at Thrawn. Thrawn stared back at him without expression.

“You’re _blue_ ,” Eli said.

“We don’t exchange names,” Thrawn said, as if that mattered.

“You’re _blue!_ ” Eli said again. “They _know_ who you are.”

“Then I’m making a name for myself,” Thrawn said easily, and Eli could have sworn he was actually enjoying this. “You’re always telling me connections matter more than skill in the Empire. Well, this is a skill I possess that helps me make connections—”

“I didn’t—”

“The cadets at Royal Imperial,” said Thrawn with thinly-disguised smugness and amusement, “have very well-connected parents, as you’ve said. Moffs, Admirals, Senators, industrial tycoons—”

He was interrupted by a chirp from his comlink. Eli let his protests die as Thrawn answered it.

“Thrawn,” Thrawn announced. Then, eyes fixed on Eli and positively gleaming, he said, “Why yes, I am free for Life Day. I would be honored to meet your parents.”

There was a pause as whatever rich cadet was on the other side gave Thrawn his address.

“By any chance,” said Thrawn casually, still watching Eli, “is your paternal grandfather alive?”

Eli bit back a cry of indignation.

“Ah, he is?” said Thrawn. “This is good news—”

He deftly moved his hand back as Eli tried to snatch the comlink. After a rushed goodbye, Thrawn ended the call.

“You can’t just fuck everyone at Royal Imperial,” Eli said weakly.

“And their families,” Thrawn reminded him.

“And their — you _can’t_ ,” Eli said. Thrawn placed the comlink back in his pocket and stared down at Eli, his face changing, becoming more contemplative.

With hands in his pockets, he said, “Why not?”

No other argument had worked so far. This time, Eli appealed to Thrawn’s pride. “It reeks of desperation,” he said. “It tells people that you can’t get sex from anyone you actually know.”

“The only person I ‘actually know’ to any notable degree,” said Thrawn, “is you. And you weren’t doing it.”

Suddenly, it felt very much like the air had been sucked out of the room. Eli became ultra-aware of the way Thrawn’s undershirt clung to his muscles, the way his uniform trousers hung loosely on his hips and gave Eli a glimpse of the tight black underwear beneath. He forced himself to take a quick breath, to change the subject.

What came out of his mouth was brilliant:

“Uh…”

Thrawn tilted his head to the side, waiting patiently. What came out of Eli’s mouth next was even more embarrassing, his voice weak and nearly inaudible:

“But I don’t have any money…”

Thrawn regarded him in silence for a moment. “Is that necessary?” he asked. “I was not under the impression that money was _required_ in Imperial culture.”

“You…” Eli gestured to the pile of cash on the desk nearby. Thrawn glanced over at it, his expression not changing, and then swept a handful of crisp bills into his palm. He handed these to Eli; then, when Eli just stared at them, Thrawn gently took his wrist and guided his hand to Thrawn’s, where he flipped Eli’s hand over and let the bills fall back into his own palm.

“There,” said Thrawn with satisfaction. “We’ve exchanged money.”

Eli couldn’t think of anything to say. He was blushing so hard that he worried his head might explode. As Thrawn unbuttoned his trousers, letting them fall to the floor, Eli could only think two things coherently.

The first was that if he ever caught Thrawn writing his own number on the bathroom wall after this, he was gonna kill him.

The second was: _Glowing eyes, blue skin, and muscular thighs, indeed._

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm draculard there too


End file.
